Tuesday 19 October 2010 15.59 EDT
First published on Tuesday 19 October 2010 15.59 EDT

Here's a question. If the future is integration rather than multi- culturalism, does that mean that everybody should do everything? Poles celebrating Diwali. Black Africans Morris Dancing. Perhaps that's taking this "ebony and ivory, living together in perfect harmony" thing too literally.

But it is the kind of thought that can pop into Jon Gupta's head during a morning's carp fishing on the riverbanks of the industrialised Midlands. "Is there nowhere that native Britons can go and be in the company of their own," complained one contributor to the Angling Times website the other day; one salvo in a hot debate. Sounds comical, but here it is: Is angling racist?

Jon, whose ancestors hailed from India, read the article and the intemperate responses it elicited with incredulity. No, fishing isn't racist, he told me. But if the EA says the riverbanks don't always seem welcoming to minorities, that's fair comment. "People were spending more time looking at me than at their own floats," he says. "It was hardly friendly. I just abandoned one competition. Didn't fish again for four or five years."

But he missed it. Older, and more confident about his identity, he drifted back. "I fish with a lovely crowd now. Great company. All sorts. But you do sometimes meet people who obviously aren't comfortable. They won't talk or they'll refer to 'Paki this and Paki that' to see if I'll react. I don't." It's not in his culture, the traditionalists say. And maybe it isn't.

"But I see a fair few people buying rods here to go fishing in Pakistan," Jon tells me. Perhaps they too want to cast off among their own kind. Maybe they're just nervous about the riverbanks here. I don't know. But it doesn't seem a terrible idea to find out.